"My Grandparents Spoke Russian" — A Guide for Heritage Learners Starting From Scratch
For many heritage learners, Russian does not begin with the alphabet, a textbook, or the first day of class. It begins much earlier, often with words that were never formally explained. You may remember a grandmother saying кушай whenever she put food in front of you, relatives telling you иди сюда, or the constant use of давай, even though nobody ever sat down to explain what these words meant grammatically or how they were spelled. You simply understood them because they belonged to the environment in which you grew up.
Years later, however, that familiarity can be surprisingly difficult to measure. You may recognize words when you hear them, understand certain family conversations, or have a good instinct for how Russian should sound, while still being unable to introduce yourself comfortably or construct a simple sentence without switching to English. This is why many adults with Russian-speaking parents or grandparents describe themselves as complete beginners and then discover that their situation is more complicated than that.
They may be starting from scratch in terms of formal study, but they are not always starting from zero.
Heritage Russian often develops unevenly
A student who begins Russian with no previous exposure usually develops the major skills in a relatively predictable order. They learn Cyrillic, basic vocabulary, simple sentence patterns, pronunciation, and then increasingly complicated grammar. A heritage learner may arrive with pieces of all of these, but the pieces do not necessarily fit together.
Someone may understand quite a lot when a relative speaks but struggle to produce even a short answer. Another person may pronounce Russian sounds naturally because they heard them throughout childhood but have no idea how noun endings work. Someone else may know dozens of words connected with food, family members, household routines, affection, or childhood but lack basic vocabulary for work, travel, hobbies, or everyday adult conversation.
Russian teachers often notice that heritage learners are difficult to describe with a single level because their abilities may be distributed so unevenly. Listening might be much stronger than speaking, pronunciation might be stronger than grammar, and familiar household vocabulary might be much stronger than the vocabulary needed to describe what happened at work yesterday.
This is also why simply asking a heritage learner, “How many years have you studied Russian?” may tell you very little. A person may truthfully answer “none” while also having heard Russian every weekend throughout childhood.
“I understand Russian, but I can’t speak it”
One of the most common heritage-language experiences is the feeling that Russian seems perfectly understandable until it is your turn to say something.
This is not contradictory. Understanding and producing language place different demands on the learner.
Imagine a child whose grandmother regularly says:
Иди сюда.
Come here.
The child understands the phrase and walks over. No Russian response is required.
At the dinner table, relatives may ask whether the child wants more food, whether they are cold, where they left something, or whether they finished their homework. The child may respond in English, nod, point, or give a one-word answer. Over many years, this can create substantial listening familiarity without developing the ability to retrieve vocabulary and construct independent Russian sentences.
That difference sometimes becomes obvious in an adult classroom. A heritage learner may follow a familiar conversation about food or family relatively easily, but when the teacher asks what they did over the weekend, they suddenly have trouble forming a sentence. The difficulty is not necessarily comprehension. It is retrieval and production.
This is why someone can sincerely say, “I understand Russian much better than I speak it.” In heritage learners, that pattern is quite common.
Some people with Russian grandparents really are complete beginners
It is equally important not to assume that family background automatically produces language knowledge.
Some Russian-speaking grandparents lived far away and were seen only occasionally. Some parents deliberately switched to English with their children because they wanted them to integrate quickly or because English had become the family's main language. In other families, Russian was used between adults but rarely spoken directly to the child.
In those cases, a learner may remember a few names, foods, expressions, or family traditions while having very little practical command of Russian.
There is nothing unusual about that. Languages are acquired through exposure and use, not inherited simply because a parent or grandparent spoke them.
For someone who knows only a few isolated expressions, cannot read Cyrillic, and cannot form basic sentences, a Complete Beginner Russian class may be exactly the right starting point.
The important question is not what your family spoke. It is what you can currently understand and produce.
The wonderfully uneven world of “family vocabulary”
Heritage learners often have vocabulary that reflects the situations in which Russian entered their lives.
Someone may know the Russian names for soups, pastries, vegetables, coats, slippers, family members, household objects, and childhood routines. They may remember молодец because relatives said it when they did something well, or осторожно because someone constantly told them to be careful.
They may know кушай perfectly well because it appeared at almost every family meal.
Yet the same learner may have no idea how to explain where they work.
This can feel strange at first because language courses are usually organized around practical adult vocabulary: introductions, professions, hobbies, travel, schedules, preferences, and daily routines. A heritage learner may therefore find themselves knowing highly specific domestic words while missing vocabulary that a conventional beginner learns during the first few weeks.
Someone might know several ways their grandmother told them to eat and still be unable to say, “I work in marketing,” “I moved last year,” or “I went to the mountains over the weekend.”
This does not mean their previous knowledge is useless. It simply reflects the life in which they encountered Russian.
Formal study gradually expands that familiar household language into the language needed for adult life.
Childhood exposure may leave traces in pronunciation
Another interesting pattern appears with pronunciation.
Some heritage learners retain a good ear for Russian sounds even if they have forgotten most of the language. A consonant that is difficult for another beginner may feel familiar to them, and Russian rhythm or intonation may come more naturally because they heard it repeatedly as children.
This varies enormously from one person to another, so heritage background should not be assumed to produce native-like pronunciation. Still, teachers sometimes encounter learners whose pronunciation sounds surprisingly natural compared with their grammar or vocabulary.
The learner may be able to repeat a sentence beautifully while having very little idea why the noun changed its ending.
That can feel contradictory only if we assume that all language skills develop together. In heritage learning, they often do not.
Not knowing Cyrillic does not make you less of a heritage learner
Reading is another area where heritage learners can feel unexpectedly self-conscious.
A person may have heard Russian for years without ever learning to read it. Then they see a familiar word such as:
бабушка
and realize that although they have known the word since childhood, they have no idea how to read it on the page.
There is nothing unusual about this. Listening and literacy are separate skills.
You do not learn Cyrillic automatically by hearing Russian in the kitchen.
Once heritage learners begin learning the alphabet, however, the process can be especially satisfying because written forms start connecting with sounds they already know. Бабушка, спасибо, or хорошо may suddenly feel less like new vocabulary and more like familiar words finally acquiring a visual form.
For this reason, it is usually better to learn Cyrillic early rather than rely on English transliteration for an extended period. Reading gives the learner access to dictionaries, textbooks, messages, subtitles, and written examples while helping connect half-remembered sounds to concrete words.
Grammar can put names to things you already recognize
Formal Russian grammar can be particularly interesting for heritage learners because sometimes the rule is new even when the language pattern itself is familiar.
Take:
бабушка
grandmother
and:
у бабушки
at grandmother’s / grandmother has
A heritage learner may have heard у бабушки hundreds of times and instinctively know that у бабушка sounds wrong, yet have no idea why the ending changes.
Learning about the genitive case gives a name and structure to something that previously existed only as a familiar sound.
This is one reason some heritage learners respond to grammar explanations with something like, “I didn’t know that was a rule. I just knew it sounded right.”
Others have no such intuition and need to learn the same grammar from the beginning as any other student. Again, there is no single heritage-learner profile.
Formal grammar can therefore serve two purposes. It teaches genuinely new patterns, but it can also organize knowledge that was previously stored only as fragments.
Your grandmother’s Russian may not sound exactly like your textbook
Heritage learners sometimes become confused when the Russian they hear in class does not perfectly match the Russian they remember from home.
“My grandmother always said it differently” is a perfectly reasonable observation.
Russian-speaking families have very different linguistic histories. A learner’s parents or grandparents may have come from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Moldova, Israel, Germany, or another country or community. Their speech may reflect regional habits, generational vocabulary, Soviet-era expressions, multilingual backgrounds, slang, diminutives, or phrases particular to one family.
Some families also use affectionate forms so frequently that a child grows up assuming the diminutive is simply the normal form of the word.
Older relatives may use expressions younger speakers rarely use today. A family from Belarus or Ukraine may have linguistic influences that are not represented in a standard Russian textbook. Someone who grew up in a multilingual household may remember Russian mixed naturally with another language.
None of this necessarily means that the family Russian was “wrong,” nor does it mean the textbook is wrong. Language changes across generations, regions, and social contexts.
For heritage learners, formal study often involves learning how their family’s Russian fits into the larger language.
The emotional pressure can be different
There is another part of heritage learning that has little to do with grammar.
A conventional beginner usually does not feel that they should already know Russian. A heritage learner sometimes does.
“My grandparents spoke Russian. Why don’t I?”
“My mother understood everything her parents said, so why didn’t I learn it?”
“I wish I had studied Russian when my grandparents were still alive.”
These thoughts can make ordinary beginner mistakes feel more significant than they really are.
It can also be surprisingly uncomfortable to practice Russian with relatives. Speaking incorrect Russian in front of classmates may feel relatively easy because everyone is learning. Saying the same sentence to an aunt, parent, or grandparent can feel much more exposed, particularly if the relative immediately corrects the pronunciation, finishes the sentence, or switches back to English.
Sometimes family members are simply trying to make communication easier, but from the learner’s perspective the result can be frustrating.
The useful thing to remember is that being connected to a language through family does not mean you were automatically given the opportunity to learn it. If Russian was never systematically taught or regularly required from you, there is no reason you should already possess the skills you are now trying to develop.
Should you begin with Complete Beginner Russian?
For some heritage learners, yes. For others, probably not.
Someone who knows only isolated words, cannot read Cyrillic, and cannot construct basic sentences will likely benefit from starting at the beginning. A learner who already understands everyday conversation, reads Cyrillic, and can produce simple sentences may be better suited to Low Beginner or another continuing level.
The complication is that heritage learners may have several different levels at once.
Their listening might resemble a Low Intermediate learner while their speaking is closer to Low Beginner. Their reading may be Complete Beginner, while their pronunciation sounds considerably more advanced. Their household vocabulary may be extensive, yet their grammar may be extremely limited.
For this reason, placement based purely on years of study is particularly unreliable.
At Polyglottist Language Academy, the more useful question is where the learner’s missing foundation begins. The goal is not to place someone into the most advanced class they can barely manage, but to find the level where they can build the skills that their previous exposure did not develop.
A few ways to find out what you already know
Before beginning formal study, it can be helpful to test your Russian informally without preparing first.
Listen to an ordinary Russian conversation and notice exactly what you understand. Do you recognize isolated words, follow the general topic, or understand complete sentences? Does your comprehension change when the topic moves away from food, family, or familiar household situations?
Then try reading a few simple Russian words. If you have not learned Cyrillic yet, this may reveal that your listening ability is much stronger than your reading.
You can also write down every Russian word or expression you remember from childhood without looking anything up. Heritage learners are sometimes surprised by how much comes back once they begin making a list.
Finally, try saying a few ordinary sentences aloud:
“My name is…”
“I live in…”
“I work…”
“I like…”
“Yesterday I…”
This often reveals the difference between recognition and active speech very quickly.
The purpose is not to assign yourself a level. It is simply to understand the shape of your existing knowledge.
The next step is usually building the language your childhood did not require
Once heritage learners begin studying formally, they often need to expand beyond the Russian associated with family life.
That means learning how to describe work, hobbies, travel, plans, opinions, past events, relationships, and everyday adult situations. It also means connecting familiar expressions to the grammatical system behind them.
If you remember кушай, you can learn that it comes from кушать and explore how Russian verbs change.
If у бабушки sounds familiar, learning the genitive case helps explain why.
If your family used давай constantly, formal study can show you why this apparently simple word appears in so many conversational situations.
This is where heritage knowledge becomes especially useful. Familiar fragments stop being isolated memories and begin connecting to a larger system.
Speaking with family may remain the hardest part for a while
Even after beginning classes, heritage learners sometimes find that speaking with relatives is more difficult than speaking with teachers or classmates.
Family members may speak too quickly, use slang, expect more comprehension, or switch to English as soon as the conversation becomes difficult. They may also correct mistakes immediately because they are emotionally invested in the language and in the learner’s progress.
It can therefore be useful to build speaking confidence in a setting where mistakes are expected before trying to conduct long conversations with family.
Over time, the goal is not to reproduce exactly the Russian your grandparents spoke or to prove that you are a “real” heritage speaker. It is simply to make more of the language available to you.
Finding the right Russian class
If Russian has always been somewhere in your family but you are not sure whether you belong in Complete Beginner, Low Beginner, or another level, the answer is usually found by looking at your actual skills rather than your family history.
Polyglottist Language Academy offers Russian classes for adult learners, including students who come to the language through heritage backgrounds and may have very uneven previous exposure. Structured study can be particularly useful for connecting passive listening knowledge with grammar, literacy, vocabulary, and speaking practice.
You can explore current options here:
Russian Classes at Polyglottist Language Academy